


The Dove and the Agent

by writing_my_mind_off



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Development, Dom Spencer Reid, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, POV Spencer Reid, Post-Prison Spencer Reid, Professor Spencer Reid, The BAU Team - Freeform, Top Spencer Reid, Unsub | Unknown Subject
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:48:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29928831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_my_mind_off/pseuds/writing_my_mind_off
Summary: As one of the girls in Dove´s dorm commits suicide, she feels like something´s not quite right about it. As she tells her professor, Dr. Spencer Reid, he has a hard time believing her.A/N: English isn´t my first language, but I had this idea and really wanted to put it to paper! It would also be nice if this would improve my language skills...check my tumblr for more!
Relationships: Spencer Reid/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

Spencer Reid´s view

“I believe in intuition and inspiration…I sometimes FEEL that I am right.  
I do not KNOW that I am.”  
\- Albert Einstein

It was a day like every other was, since the last three weeks.  
Spencer would get up in the morning, listing to some classic music and drinking his coffee. Then he would get dressed and leave with his beloved leather messenger-bag.  
It would be at the college, where he held classes in psychology and sociology, where he would have his second coffee and write todays themes on the whiteboard.  
Even though Spencer knew he could not change the orders, that forced him to work part-time as professor, minimalizing his time at the BAU, he thought about some good arguments as to why he should be a fulltime part of the team again.  
Why couldn’t the team understand, that the time in prison had not changed him. Sure he was a little more short tempered, had nightmares from time to time and the lack of control in there had made him a little possessive but none of that influenced his abilities as behavior analyst.

**********

Just as he thought that this Friday would be just as mundane as all the days before, he notice something interesting in his last class of the day.  
Even though there ware a lot of different young women only auditing his class, there where some familiar faces that belonged to his students. One of them was a white-blonde young woman, who would always sit in the back of the class.  
When he asked questions she would always look at him like a frightened bunny, scared that he would ask her to answer. Being as understanding as possible, he of course never picked her, not wanting to make her uncomfortable and scare her away.  
Because except for her social anxiety, she was a good student. Always on time, taking a massive amount of notes and having the highest score in his classes.  
But today she sat in the first row, looking up at him, barely taking notes.  
If he wouldn´t know better, he would think that she was one of his groupies. Nothing more than one of the young girls that basically undressed him with their eyes, making him uncomfortable.  
Morgan had told him to enjoy the fact that all these young women would´ve killed to be with him, but he just didn´t like it. Their looks made insecurities inside him rise again, from which he thought he would have dropped them after becoming thirty.

At the end of the class, when everyone had already left, she was still sitting there.  
Slowly packing her stuff into her black backpack with daisies on it. She started walking up to his desk, nervously pulling the sleeves of her dark green turtleneck sweater over her fingers.  
“Professor Reid?”, her voice was soft and almost reminded him of the little windchimes his mother had hung up in the garden when he was seven.  
“Oh…Wallace…Ms. Wallace.”  
“Dove.”, she added.  
“Right. Like the bird.”  
“yeah…”  
He liked to tell himself that he just didn’t care to learn her name, but he knew he had suppressed her name on purpose. Birds reminded him of Gideon and he could not tell if they brought up happy memories or only reminded him of the painful and utterly pointless loss of his father-figure. The silence between them started to grow awkward. Spencer grabbed his bag ready to go.  
“So…How can I help you?”, he leaned against his desk. He didn’t want to be rude, but he really hoped she hurry up and give him his well-deserved weekend.  
“I-…I don´t know where to start…I´m sorry.”, she looked at him with her big blue eyes as if she was about to cry.  
“What´s wrong?”, he awkwardly touched her shoulder, since that’s what JJ did when he was sad. She took a step back and shook her head. Spencer understood that, he wasn´t a fan of people touching him either. She cleared her throat and pulled a piece of paper out of her bag. She handed it to him and as he unfolded it, a professionally taken picture of a brown haired young woman looked at him. Next to her picture where information’s about a funeral service this weekend and her name…Linda Harvey.  
“She died a few days ago.”  
“I´m sorry. How did she…”

That’s when he saw a spark in her eyes and all of the sudden Dove wasn’t nervous anymore. She pushed some of her long hair behind her ear and licked her lips, before stepping closer.

“That’s why I wanted to talk with you! The official cause of death is suicide, but I know she didn’t kill herself! Linda showed signs of Depression but she was in therapy and was very open about her mental health. I lived with her in the same dorm and there was nothing unusual to her behavior. She also took none of the typical precautions a suicidal person would, if they were planning to commit suicide. She also just booked her classes for the next semester and-“, Reid lifted his arms in an afford to make her stop talking. She immediately stopped.  
“Listen, I know you´re a smart girl-“, she looked at him and he couldn’t tell if she was sad, annoyed or disappointed in him. Tears started to well up in her eyes.  
“You don´t believe me.”, she focused at the empty seats, refusing to look at him. Knowing she would start to cry.  
“I do believe that you really think, that there’s more going on. But technically speaking, it´s a common thing for people who just lost somebody they´re close to-“, her eyes snapped back to his face.  
“We weren’t close. She was my bully. Nobody believes me, but I know there’s more to this!”

Spencer didn’t know what to tell her. Suicides in college weren’t uncommon. Especially during the exams. The young woman had depression and had already planned for the next semester. It wouldn’t be the first time, a student planned their future only to fail some exams, not being able to continue their planned route. Leaving them at a very dark place.  
While he was thinking of what to say she once again was digging in her bag. She pulled a pen out and took the paper from his hands. As she leaned down next to him on his desk, Spencer smelled her perfume. Lavender.  
She handed it back to him with her name and number written on it.  
“I know the next few weeks you´ll be back at your FBI job. All I´m asking is that you look if there is anything suspicious to you…please.”, as much as Reid wanted to say no, her sad blue eyes where melting his heart. He sighed and took the paper, knowing he was way to empathetic.  
She thanked him about a dozen times while leaving the class, almost tripping over her own feet while looking back at him, leaving Spencer alone with his gaze held on her delicate handwriting.

**********

As Monday rolled up, Spencer came to the office armed with coffee and a chocolate croissant. He greeted everyone and went straight into Penelope´s ‘Batcave’.  
“Good morning , Garcia”, he put the offerings next to her on her desk.  
“What is it that you desire, mighty professor?”, she answered while unpacking it and taking a bite out of the croissant.

Reid pulled the paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.

“A student of mine asked me if I could check if there is anything suspicious about the death of this girl from her dorm. Can you get me the documents?”, Penelope raised her eyebrows.  
“SHE? Don’t tell me your playing hide and seek with the teacher’s pet!”  
“OF COURSE NOT! She…She cried and I felt bad…that’s all.”  
“Uhhh a knight in shining armor. Cute.”, her hands where already busy at her keyboard. “There. Linda Harvey. Twenty-two, death by suicide, overdose of Paracetamol. Poor thing.”

On the screen in front of Spencer appeared ten different files.  
After every document he gave a short ‘done’ and Penelope closed it, letting him read the next one.

“Nothing.”, he took the paper and typed Doves number into the buttons of his phone.

“Hello Ms. Wallace,  
I am sorry to tell you, but I checked  
the files and there is nothing suspicious about  
the death of Linda Harvey.  
I am sorry for your loss and hope  
you’re now able to move on.

\- Professor Reid”

A few seconds later his phone buzzed.

“ok.  
thanks,  
dove w.”

“She didn’t like the answer?”, Penelope’s words made Spencer stop starring at his screen.  
“Not really. Thanks Anyways.”, as he left Garcia´s office he heard a small ‘anytime’. Although he would never admit it, he felt sorry for this young woman. She seemed so sure about her theory of foul play.  
But after all, it was just a very sad tragedy.  
He sat in his chair, taking a deep breath.  
It felt good being back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summary: As one of the girls in Dove´s dorm commits suicide, she feels like something´s not quite right about it. As she tells her professor, Dr. Spencer Reid, he has a hard time believing her.
> 
> A/N: English isn´t my first language, but I had this idea and really wanted to put it to paper! It would also be nice if this would improve my language skills...

Chapter 2   
Spencer Reid

“I’m very comfortable being right,” she admitted.  
“We all are. But sometimes it’s a lonely place.”  
― Susan Mallery, Sweet Trouble

It had been two weeks since Spencer started two work at the BAU again, in his head he already counted the days until he had to go back to being a professor. Even though he tried, his arguments to stop this terrible circle went to nowhere.  
From time to time he also still thought about Dove. He hadn’t heard from her since he told her that her theories, surrounding Linda Harvey´s suicide, where wrong. It did not help that Garcia had told the team about, how he looked something up for a girl in his class and now Luke was teasing him, calling Dove his little college-girlfriend.

Just as he started writing his report, on their last case, somebody came out of the elevator. Thinking it would be JJ and Penelope retouring from their lunch break, he looked up. His gaze fell straight to Dove Wallace. Her white-blonde, curly hair was tied to a low ponytail, to make her look older and she wore brown, waist tie pants and a tucked in cream colored turtleneck to seem professional. Reid couldn’t help but chuckle at that sighed, for a profiler it was more then clear to see that she was nervous holding on to her, very similar to spencer´s, messenger-bag. Doves eyes met his as she started to rush at him.  
“Hello, Miss Wallace.”, he raised his eyebrows.   
“Hello, Professor! I- I was here two days ago but the lady at the front desk told me you weren’t here.”  
“Yeah, my team and I had a case in Seattle. Miss Wallace?”, Spencer took a deep breath and tried his best at sounding as polite as possible. “I don’t think it is appropriate of you, my twenty-year-old student, to come here into to the FBI-Headquarters and visit me, your professor. This could be interpretated wrong, if you understand?”  
Dove looked at him like a scolded puppy.  
“I´m twenty-one, Professor.”, she pulled a massive folder out of her bag and gave it to Spencer. He opened it. Lots of Highlighter use, Post-its and photos. It was a shame that this was nothing more than a conspiracy theory, spun out of control. Spencer didn’t need to read it to know what this was about.  
“I already told you: there was nothing suspicious about Linda Harveys death.”, a little frown started to show up on her porcelain face.  
“I know, but I looked deeper into it and found out that there were more suicides before Linda and all of them where at least five times at our colleges counselors office.”, Reid licked his lips. “And also, they happen every year around the same time, during the finals. That happens now for at least fifteen years! Also is our counselor, the English teacher professor Miller and he always told us he´s from the UK but I looked him up and couldn’t find anything on him older then twenty-five years! And-“, Spencer raised his eyebrows.  
“I assume professor Miller is one of your teachers?”, Dove nodded in reply.  
“He´s my English professor. Not the nicest guy to be around…“  
“So you have a personal problem with him and are now framing him as some kind of evil mastermind behind the suicide of a girl in you dorm?”, she shook her head, making some of her curls fall out of her ponytail.  
“No! I know there is something going on, because a large amount of the female suicides from the last fifteen year, surrounding girls that went to the counselors office on the regular, has him listed as their counselor.” she flipped the folder to a page with notes and professor Millers face. “And as you can see on page twenty, he does not come up when you search him in the UK birth registers, in the town he says he was born in! The only man I found was a Henry Miller, who died at twenty-fife two years before professor Christian Miller made his first appearance here in the states. So I called around and found out that although they didn’t have a Christian Miller in that town, they had an Christoph Arthur to which description-“, he lost his nerves.  
“Dove! ENGOUGH.”, she winced at his harsh words, he stood up and pressed his palms to his desk, leaning closer to her. “Not only do you show up here, completely uninvited, you also throw around your, evidence lacking, conspiracy theories and spread rumors about a colleague of mine. Why are you so stubborn about this?”, Dove just looked at him, eyes widened.  
“You didn´t even read it. Please. I know I am right. This man vanished and was known in town as a creep. Please. I know that’s the same guy.”, her glassy eyes met his annoyed gaze.  
“No.”, Reid sat back down into his chair.   
“But-“  
“I said no.”, he continued writing his report, ignoring her.  
Even though Spencer did not look up, he knew she still stood there. A few minutes passed and Dove still stood there, not knowing what to do.  
“You know what, Professor?”, Dove sounded angry. “If you would’ve taken some of your precious time, to read what I found out, you would know that there is a pattern behind his doing. Since he started working at-“, now Spencer completely lost his temper, jumped up from his chair and started to yell.   
“Stop it! I don’t want to fucking hear it!”, he took the folder and practically threw it at Dove, making the papers spill out of it and fall to the floor.  
“Hey, are you alright down there?”, Emily closed the door, to her office, behind her and came down the stairs. She looked concerned and clearly heard Spencer yell at the young girl in front of him.  
“I´m okay Emily, nothing to worry about.”, just now he realized that Emily actually aimed that questions towards Dove. She came to Spencer´s desk and held out her hand to Dove.  
“I´m SSA Emily Prentiss. And you are?”, Dove shook Emily´s hand.  
“Dove Wallace.”, Emily now looked at Spencer. “I- I am one of Professor Reid´s students.”  
“Ex-students.”, Spencer sat back into his chair and continued his paperwork, meanwhile Dove looked at him absolutely mortified.  
“W- What? Why?”, Reid looked up at her.  
“Because you purposefully ignored mine and professor Millers boundaries and privacy and disrespected me. And to be frank, you really get at my nerves. I am going to inform the Decan about your suspension from my class tomorrow.”  
“That´s not fair!”  
“Well. Life isn’t fair, Miss Wallace.”  
Dove was already walking away when she stopped and turned around.  
“You know what?”, she came back to his desk. Eyes filled with tears of anger. “There will be another death soon and that one will be on you. Just remember that, if you finally wake up and realize you´re not omniscient, professor, that I told you so and tried to warn you.”  
She stormed of to the elevator and entered it as JJ and Penelope left it, pressing a button a few times, while biting her lip, trying hard to fight back her tears.

“Uhm…What was that?”, JJ looked at Emily with confusion, while Penelope watched the elevator doors close.  
“I knew we should have ordered. You now what? That´s my own fault! My horoscope told me I should follow my guts.”, Garcia threw her hands over her head.  
As the two women reached Spencer´s desk, they helped Emily pick up the papers scattered on the floor. Reid rubbed his face and let his hand ran through his hair.  
“Was I too mean, Emily?”, the dark haired woman put the papers back in the folder and looked at him serious. While the two blonde ones read through the folder.  
“From what I heard? Yes. You kicked her from your class, because she was worried about a potential murder.”, now Penelope made big eyes.  
“Was that the girl I checked the files for?...What was her name…Birdie?”  
“Dove.”, Spencer corrected.   
“Boy Wonder, why did you make her cry? You are supposed to be the hero of your guys story!”, she pouted.  
“We don’t have a story, Penelope. She is just a student with a wild imagination.”  
“What is even going on?”, JJ looked at Spencer, completely confused.  
“That girl was Dove Wallace, a student of mine. A girl in her dorm killed herself and she refuses to believe that there wasn’t foul play involved. She even made a folder, which frames an teaching colleague of mine.”, the women all looked at him concerned and he knew what they where thinking. “No. Garcia and I checked and she is wrong about that.” Emily raised her eyebrows.  
“But we only looked at the suicide of that one girl…”, Garcia answered quietly, now looking at Emily.  
“Spence, did you look at the folder at all?”, JJ had a concerned look on her face. “She has some really concerning things listed on here. Like that Christoph Arthur…and how she thinks that’s your colleague Christian Miller.”, she gave the folder to Emily, who looked through the page JJ mentioned and then handed the single page to Garcia and the rest of the folder to Reid. They didn’t really talk, but over the years they all had learned to communicate with each other wordless. The blonde woman with the pink glasses and matching cat ears went straight to her Batcave, while the ever so smartly dressed man quickly read through the pages. He then leaned back in is chair, massaging his temples.  
“I messed up.”, Emily and JJ looked at him and while JJ reached out and patted his shoulder to comfort him, the dark haired woman just nodded.  
“How do I fix this?”, he pulled his phone out and looked through his numbers. “Should I call her? Is it okay to just call your student? JJ?”, JJ just shrugged.  
“Mabey we should wait for Garcia and see what she finds first…”, as if she had just waited for that, she came running out of her Batcave with a tablet.  
“Okay, you guys. I found nothing and everything! This professor Miller doesn’t even have a birth certificate. But I found quite a bit on Christoph Arthur.”, She showed them her tablet with some very old documents on it.   
“His mother was a prostitute in the little town named Honington Corner. Father is unknown, and there a lot of medical documents from an now closed mental institution, I gave myself access to. Now listen closely: He was in there from the age thirteen until eighteen, because his mother was worried about him hurting someone, after finding his diary in which he called himself ‘The Sheppard’. He also had a list of towns people and pets who he had deemed as needing to be killed, to protect his sheep. Those where all people with mental illnesses or addictions and the animals? I don’t even wanna know, but really weird. After his eighteenth birthday they had to let him go, since he never hurt somebody, even though some doctors where clearly against that. And then he vanished. And you sweet babies might think that is the last bit of information I have for you but no!”, Penelope pushed her glasses back. “I found a Christian Arthur who, like Miller, has no background but appeared right after Christoph vanished and went to school and university to become teacher.” She flipped to some of the Universities pictures of ‘Christian Arthur’ and Spencer recognized his face. “I already had the system check and yes: same guy as our professor. His classmate was a man named Henry Miller, who had some recorded addiction issues and was on his way to sobriety AND Christian was responsible for him, since they shared a room. The year they both graduated, not only Henry but also Christians mother killed themselfs and Christian vanished forever.”, the team just exchanged shocked looks. The accuracy of Dove´s research was astounding.  
“I also checked all the suicides that happened since professor Miller started to teach at your collage, boy genius. And just like…Dove wrote in her folder: There is a clear pattern of three young girls with mental illnesses, being a large amount of time at the counselors office and killing themselves around the same time every year. Sadly for us, none of them are marked by the police as suspicious. The girls really committed suicide without a trace of foul play.”, Spencer by now was sitting on the edge of his chair. He has made a mistake! Dove was right, there was more to it, then he had allowed it to be. How could that happen? He was always so careful and aware of his surroundings…  
“Well, the thing is , we can´t do anything about it. We might have this connection about his changed name and that he was in an mental institution, but that’s it. Like you said Penelope, he has never hurt anyone. At least it never got tracked down and the girls where all mentally ill to some degree.” Emily stated to the misliking of Spencer.  
“However..”, a slight smile popped into her face. “I am going to talk to the police department responsible for those suicides and tell them, that if another one happens they have to contact us immediately. I´ll them an anonymous caller reported some kind of suicide club or something like that. If they ask for help, we can go there and have a look ourselves. Also we can get a grip of Miller and see if he is as dangerous as Dove suspects.”, with that Emily went up to her office leaving Garcia, JJ and Spencer alone.  
Coffee. Spencer needed a coffee.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As one of the girls in Dove´s dorm commits suicide, she feels like something´s not quite right about it. As she tells her professor, Dr. Spencer Reid, he has a hard time believing her.
> 
> A/N: English isn´t my first language, but I had this idea and really wanted to put it to paper! It would also be nice if this would improve my language skills...

Spencer Reid´s view

“When friendship leaves us through death, we feel cheated in life. Life doesn’t play fair, so I vow to win the game for us both.”  
― Amy Hoover

Five days later they got a call from the police department, they just received the call of a hysterical young woman who found her roommate, dead.  
Spencer could feel his heart racing, he had secretly hoped there wouldn’t ever be a call, that all this had just been a series of macabre coincidences.  
Rossi was driving the black SUV, Emily sitting next to him, Spencer sat on the backseat. The car was filled with tension.   
“Hey, were gonna get to the bottom of this.”, Emily reassured him but his mind couldn’t stop racing.

As they reached the dorms, there was already Police outside. Rossi talked to the officers, who closed the area to keep the nosey students and their cellphones away. Then he came back to the car, his notes in his hand.  
“We need to go to the second floor, room twelve. The room belongs to Dove Wallace and Ellie Price-“, Spencer face grew pale. “Fuck!” He sprinted into the dorm, there wasn’t time for the elevator so he ran up the stairs. Halfway up he already heard Dove´s voice, she was hysteric and angry but alive.   
For a minute he stood still, heavily breathing but calm. She wasn’t dead and that, as selfish as it sounded, was all that mattered.  
He gave himself a second to collect and went upstairs, where Rossi and Emily just exited the elevator. Even though they looked as if one was going to make a joke, they stayed quiet. The team started to walk down the hallway where two police officers tried to hold Dove away from her room. She was in complete distress and yelled with the people inside.  
“No- Stop touching her- NO- STOP! Let go of me!”, her hair was everywhere and stuck to her face, wet from tears. Spencer pulled out his badge and told the officer to let go of his student. Dove for a second stood still, just looked at him.  
Then she stormed up to him and slapped him across the face. She then pointed at her room, angry and trying hard to hold back her tears. “This is your fault! I FUCKING HATE YOU! IT´S YOUR FAULT I-I BEGGED YOU TO BELIEVE ME-“, Emily and Rossi went into the room. Spencer grabbed Dove by the wrist, to hold her up. She was shaking and crying so hard, he was afraid she would collapse. He leaned down to her and started to talk calmly. “I know. I´m so sorry. I need you to calm down.” She had stopped babbling her little ‘I hate you’´s and ‘This is your fault’´s and now only sobbed.   
When she heard the paramedics coming out of the room, she looked up and turned to them. There she was, her best friend, in a black body bag on a stretcher.   
“W- Where are they taking her…”, her voice was so small and quiet. Spencer put a hand on her shoulder, standing behind her and leaned close to her ear.  
“It´s okay. They just need to bring her away, so we can look for evidence.”, Dove nodded. “okay…”  
“You wanna sit down?”, Dove only nodded and gave an almost inaudible ‘please…’, so Spencer supported her on her arm, so she wouldn’t collapse, sat her on the little couch in the hallway.  
“I´m gonna go inside now, okay? Call me when you need something.”  
Dove now only looked at the wall across from her. Her face red and her pretty eyes swollen from the crying. Her breathing was almost normal again, but she still sobbed a little from time to time.

Dove´s room was a small room. The beige walls harmonized with the beige carpet.  
On the left were the beds facing each other, divided by a desks covered with little fake plants in cute little pots and books. The walls where mostly empty, except for some fairy lights and photos of Dove and her friend. She was a olive skinned, sporty looking woman with freckles and piercing green eyes. On some of the photos she had crazy colored hair. One pink, one blue, some purple but most of the pictures showed her with extremely curly short, black hair. On the right side of the room were only two dressers and a mirror accompanied by a big plant.   
It was the beds where you could see the two different personalities. The one in the top corner of the room had stuffed Animals on it and black and white, anime themed bed linen. On the wall next to it where TV-show posters hung up. ‘The Original’, ‘iZombie’ and ‘The Vampire Diaries’. Spencer no none of them. The bedside table had the same lamp on it as the other but around it where necklaces, earrings and rings scattered.   
The other bed, the one in the bottom corner, was encased by white canopy with fairy lights on it. It had a soft grey bedsheets and a cream colored loose knitted blanked on it. Next to the blanked were some books about sociology, a copy of Anna Karenina filled with Post-It´s and a notebook with stickers on it. The nightstand had a MacBook on it, squishing the lamp and framed picture behind it to the wall. The MacBook was open, yet turned off, the black screen mirrored the, now cut, piece of rope hanging from the ceiling fan, from which Dove earlier had found her friend hanging.

“This one´s mine.”, Dove said almost emotionless, standing in the doorframe, pointing at the bed in the bottom corner. Spencer twitched a little, he had not heard her coming.   
“That one´s Ellies. She is my cousin- was.”, He nodded while looking into Doves bed, pulling the canopy aside a little. “It helps with the nightmares, that was Ellies idea. I- I came home from classes today and she just hang there. Sh- She was already cold. Then I called 911. I had classes the whole day…I- I don´t know how long she- she was…”, she tried so hard to hold back her tears.   
Rossi pointed at the MacBook on the Nightstand. “Hey kid, that yours?”, Dove shook her hand and looked at it confused. “Ellies. Mine´s on the bed…Why is it on my nightstand?”, all just shared confused looks. Then Rossi took it and packed it in a small carton, an police officer had given him for evidence. He didn’t want to start a fight with them, so he took it, but he wondered if they even knew how to save evidence and how much evidence they had already contaminated.   
Emily opened the drawer of Ellies bedside table. In it were a lot of prescription medications. She looked through them and showed one to Dove.   
“Do you know something about that?”, Dove answered a little hesitant. “Ellie had a sports injury two years ago, had surgery and everything. She continued taking her pain medication after everything was over. But she wanted to stop taking it!”, Emily then pulled a little clear plastic bag out of the drawer, filled with little pink pills. “Does not look like it.”, Dove came inside almost taking the bag. Rossi pulled her away, not wanting to get her fingerprints on the newly found evidence. “What is that? Tell me that’s just her crappy way of storing her anti-baby-pill.”, Emily shook her head while pulling another bag with white powder in it, out of the drawer and Dove ran her hand through her long, messy hair.  
“I- I had no idea about that stuff…oh my god…why would she…do I?”, Rossi put a hand on her back for comfort. “Reid. How about you, taking her to get some fresh air?”, Spencer nodded at Rossi and directed Dove out of her room.

***************

When they came into the first floor, they could see lots of reporters, through the glass entrance. Dove grabbed the sleeve of Spencer´s black suit. “Can we- Can we stay inside?”, Spencer nodded. “Of course”  
Dove had lead him to the community room, where she made him sit on an old brown leather couch, in front of a TV, while she murmured something about getting a drink. He jumped a little as a cold can of coke touched his left cheek. He took it, looked behind him and his gaze met Doves. She climbed over the back of the couch and sat next to Spencer.  
They kept quiet for a while, until Dove looked at Spencer, slowly reaching for the cheek she slapped earlier, carefully stroking the little bruise. “I am sorry…”, Spencer hated that he like her soft touches. He usually hated being touched. “Don’t worry about it. It´s okay.”, Dove removed her hand. “No it´s not. I never hit anybody. It´s not okay.”  
“You had a hard day. How about that: I forgive you for hitting me and you forgive me for being mean last week.”, the blonde girl smiled a little.  
“Nice way of saying sorry.”, then her smile dropped. “What am I going to do now?”  
Reid looked at her. She leaned against the couch looking into nothing. “I don’t want to sleep in that room anymore…”, the older one took his phone out and typed in a number. “Wow, that thing is old.”, the let out a small laugh as he stood up and went out of the room.

When he came back Dove was just sitting there, starring into nothing. “Dove?”, he asked carefully, making her snap out of her thoughts. “I talked to the Decan and I got you a room on the third floor. 24 is yours, but they can´t give you the key until tomorrow morning. Do you have somebody, you can sleep at?”, Dove shook her head. “Any friends?”  
“Just hung themselves.”  
“What about your family?”  
“They don’t like when I show up uninvited. But I think I can sleep at my boyfriend´s.”  
“G-great. That´s great. You think he can come pick you up?”  
He hadn´t thought that Dove had a boyfriend. But he wasn’t surprised, not only was she very attractive, but she also was very smart. Her boyfriend could probably talk to her for hours without being bored or running out of topics. It reminded him of how him and Meave had that connection and somehow he envied Dove for still having it.  
“I don´t know…He does not like when I am too dependent of him. But I just take a cab.”, she looked down at her phone and checked her bank account. “I´ll just take the bus. It´s okay.”, Spencer shook his head. “No. I´ll pay for the cab and bring you there.”, Dove was about to say no, but Spencer kept talking. “I need a cab home anyway. And so I know you got there safe.”, Dove smiled at him. “Okay, thanks.”

***************

Half an hour later they sat in a cab to Doves boyfriend. Dove had her arms wrapped around a stuffed beige bunny. She had asked the team, if she could take it from Ellies bed, while she packed her pack bag with some of her clothes and her notebook. Her head was leaned against the car window, only looking out of it, not saying anything, just watching the passing streetlights. Reid hadn´t noticed how dark it had gotten, until they were outside. It was only 7p.m. yet, the sky was pitch-black and only the snow on the streets reflected by the lanterns lit up the night.  
“So…How long are you and your boyfriend together?”, Spencer wanted to distract her, he knew how dangerous it could be, to be alone with your mind in such dark times and he actually was curious. “Six years. We went to school together.”  
“Wow, that´s a long time.”, Dove now looked at him, stroking the bunny on her lab. She had told him while packing, that she bought it for Ellie when they were at a summer festival when they were little, to cheer Ellie up after being bullied by some boys for looking ‘too much’ like a boy.  
When they arrived at her boyfriends apartment, Spencer told the cabdriver to wait for him and went upstairs with Dove. He knew he wasn’t in the best part of the town right now, but it was worse then he had himself prepared for.   
In the hallway he couldn’t find a single spot that wasn’t littered and the walls were yellow except for the part where something, like a mattress, must have stood for a long time. There, the wall was white. It smelled like cigarettes and marijuana and in every floor you could hear either very loud music, a fighting couple or both. When they finally reached the fourth floor you could clearly hear a couple being ‘very intimate’ with each other. Dove stood a short second still and then rushed to the apartment, the noises were coming at, opened it with a key and stormed in.  
“Are you fucking kidding me?”, Spencer ran after her, being just as disgusted of the desolate state of the apartment as he was at the hallway. In the one room apartment, on a sleeping sofa sat a chubby, red-haired man in his mid-twenties and a older woman, who was closer to Spencer’s age. Both were naked and the blanked, they had thrown over themselves as Dove stormed in, barely covered anything.  
“Hey, babe.”, the guy said, a small grin on his face. He was clearly high.  
“You told me, you wouldn’t cheat on me again!”, Reid was surprised at how calm Dove sounded. The chubby man stood up, showing more then Spencer ever wanted to see and put a pair of tight boxers on. “I swear it wasn’t that bad, like, Liz just found out she´s pregnant and we wanted to celebrate. And since I cant remember the one time we did it without a rubber, ´cause I was drunk, I thought we reenact it.”, Doves eyes began to water.  
“She is pregnant? …and it´s yours?”, he came closer to her and wanted to touch her shoulder but Dove stepped back. “Don’t you dare touching me.”  
“ I swear I would have told you. You are so great with kids, I know we will make an rather unusual family but this will work out. Don’t forget that Alex guy, you like so much, also cheated and they were all happier after it!”, Spencer had only seen this type of drama at telenovelas before and had to admit, being in one wasn’t half the fun he had imagined. Dove meanwhile looked like she was going to rip her boyfriends head of. The doctor prepared himself, to jump in between them if things would get heated. Not that that guy didn’t deserve it, but he was worried about Dove getting hurt.  
“Are you fucking talking about Hamilton, Logan?”, Logan scratched his messy beard. “I am really sure his name was Alex.”, Spencer couldn’t help but chuckle. Now the red haired guy came up to him.  
“And who are you, ass clown?”, Dove got between them.  
“That’s my professor, Dr. Reid.”, the chubby man eyed Spencer up and down.  
“The fuck is he doing here?”  
“Ellie´s dead. He drove me here.”, Spencer could practically see Doves heart brake again, while Logan got pale. “Fuck, babe. I am so sorry.”, he wanted to hug her, but she took a step back and bumped into Spencer, but Logan grabbed her wrist and tried to force her into an hug. All of a sudden Spencer’s protective instinct switched itself on. He grabbed Logans arm with whic he was holding Dove and flipped it onto Logans sweaty back.  
“Dove, do you need something from him or can we go?”, Dove looked at him with big eyes, while the woman on the sofa bagged him not to hurt her baby daddy.  
“He- He still owes me fifty bucks.”, the second the pregnant affair heard that, she sprung up, took a wrinkled dollar note out of her purse and gave it to Dove.  
“Anything else?”, Spencer asked. The white-blonde girl shook her head and he let go of Logan, taking a tiny bottle disinfectant from his bag and rubbing some on his hands. The stoned guy meanwhile rubbed his arm, but was laughing and talking about how Spencer ‘ninja attacked’ him and how cool it was. Than both, Dove and Spencer, left the apartment, hearing Logan tell Dove he would call her later.

***************

Outside the Apartment building Dove sat on the steps. Cursing, while she held back her tears. Spencer though about sitting next to her, but the thought alone made him want to shower.  
“Hey, are you okay?”, Dove just nodded and took out her phone. She tapped a few times on the screen and then brought it up to her ear.  
“Hi Mom……Did you hear abou-….oh okay……I just wanted to ask if I could sleep at hom-…..yeah they took her…..yeah…okay sorry…..bye.”, now a tear rolled down her left cheek. She quickly wiped it away, put on a fake smile and stood up.  
“Sorry you had to come here with me.”, Spencer started to worry a little, nobody should swallow their emotions as hard as she just did. “Don’t worry. Was that your mother? What did she say?”. “That, since Ellies body isn’t in my room anymore, I should stop being a baby and go back to my dorm.”, he gave her a shocked look. “No. No. She had a point and hey! I have fifty dollar. Somewhere around here is probably a Motel I can sleep at.”.  
Spencer shook his head. “Do you have any idea, how dirty those places are? Not to mention how dangerous it is, for you, to wander around here at night?”, the second he spoke it started to snow again. Dove now looked at him annoyed. “What do you want me to do? Go back to my dorm and sleep there?”, he started to rub his eyes. “No…I- I don’t know.”  
The cab Spencer and Dove had arrived with started to honk. The older one ran a hand through his curly hair. “I have an idea. But you have to promise me not to tell anyone at college.”, Dove nodded and he took her hand and went to the cab with her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As one of the girls in Dove´s dorm commits suicide, she feels like something´s not quite right about it. As she tells her professor, Dr. Spencer Reid, he has a hard time believing her.
> 
> A/N: English isn´t my first language, but I had this idea and really wanted to put it to paper! It would also be nice if this would improve my language skills...

Spencer Reid´s view

“She was struck by the simple truth that sometimes the most ordinary things could be made extraordinary, simply by doing them with the right people...”  
― Nicholas Sparks, The Lucky One

When they arrived at Spencer´s apartment, he could feel his heart beat fast. He had never had a woman in his apartment before. Sure he had spent the night with some, but that had always happened within their apartments. Reid was rather particular about his personal space, showing someone how you live, was giving the other person a clear few to your personality and he didn’t know if he was ready for that. Dove had told him that it wasn’t necessary, that he took her to his apartment and tried to convince him that a night in a motel wasn’t that bad. Spencer had only shook his head and told her he’d fell personally responsible if something happened to her. Sure it had sounded like a teacher or parental figure being worried about a young girl alone in those streets, but the truth was that somewhere between the time she gave him her number and the second her ex held her wrists he started seeing her as his responsibility. As someone he had to protect.  
When they entered his apartment on the second floor, he’d asked her if she wanted something to drink and she had responded with a small ‚water, please‘. As he came back from the kitchen, Dove was already sitting on the couch again, starting at nothing. He put the glass on the coffee table, snapping her out of her trance.  
„Are you hungry?“, he could feel his hunger creep up on him and thought that food always was a great way to get to know each other. Dove shook her head and murmured a small ‚thanks‘ but knowing what he had seen till now, it was clear she didn’t want to be a burden. He sat on the coffee table in front of her and looked at her with a stern look. „Have you eaten today?“, Dove now looked him directly in the eyes. „I never have breakfast in the morning and Ellie wanted to go out and eat something, when classes are over…“, Spencer took Doves delicate hands into his. “I know you’ve had a rough day, but I can’t let you starve yourself.“, she, once again, put up one of here convincingly real looking fake smiles on. „Thank you. But I am really not hungry.“  
Spencer read through that sentence, ‚I feel bad, having others take care of me. Please let me starve, so I don’t feel terrible for asking for food.‘ was what she actually meant and he wasn’t having it. „Dove. I am very hungry and it would make me happy to share a meal with you. So how about that: you go and have a nice hot bath and meanwhile I order us something?“, he leaned closer and smiled calming at her.  
„Okay.“, now she gave him a real smile, he could tell by the spark in her ocean blue eyes.  
„Good Girl.“, he hadn’t said it very loud but knew Dove had heard it. He wasn’t sure of how inappropriate it sounded, until spoken. Spencer calmed his nerves and tried not to draw to much attention to his lastly spoken sentence, he let go of her hands and started talking again.  
„Have you ever had Indian food?“  
„At least not good one, yet“, she grinned.  
„Great! I mean not great that it wasn’t good, but great that I can show you some really good one! Are you allergic to anything or don’t like something? It would be terrible to accidentally kill you through an peanut allergy!“, his heart was beating fast and he could not quite understand his own nervousness. Was it that she was in his apartment, that they were going to eat together or that she looked at him as if he was her most favorite person alive.   
Given that her family life must be really hard, with family that did not want her around, her only friend now dead and having broken up with her boyfriend of six years, not even an hour ago, he probably was. It was a burden for Spencer, but he loved it. It felt so good being needed. She laughed a little at his rambling and shook her head. „Nope, order what you want. Oh, uhm…would you mind letting me pay? You already paid the cab and let me stay here, it´s the least I could do.“, she leaned over to her bag, wanting to search for the disgusting dollar note.   
“No Chance.”  
“But-“  
“I want to invite you for dinner and to be honest, I really don’t want that dirty dollar anywhere near me. Who knows who it´s already been.”, Dove slightly tilted her hear and smirked.  
“Are you a germophobe, professor?”  
“I´d rather consider myself, just very aware of bacteria”, she raised her eyebrows.  
“Sooooo, yes?”, she giggled and he could swear his heart skipped a beat.  
Spencer stood up, clapping his hands. „Awesome! Then I’m gonna order and you’re gonna make yourself at home. The bathroom’s over there.“, Dove nodded, took her bag and went to take a bath. Reid already heard the water pour into the tub when he called his favorite Indian place to order. However he exaggerated while ordering. Wanting to give Dove a welcomed feeling and not knowing if, if he would have only ordered only two dishes, she would like it, he ordered five main courses and seven side dishes. All of them he had before and liked, so he hoped she would to.

***************

When Dove came out of the bath, she wore black, high waisted sweatpants and a tight fitting crop top covered with daisies, her long, wavy hair, hung, still a little wet, over her shoulders. Even without mascara and eyeliner, that today were completely ruined after crying for hours and without any other makeup. She sure was a sight.   
The food had already arrived. Spencer had spent fifteen minutes thinking about how and where they were going to eat. Was on the table next to each other too close? Across from each other, too much like a date? In the end he had decided to spread the food on the coffee table with pillows around the table, to let Dove choose how close they were going to be. He also had the remote near him, in case he would make the situation awkward and he needed to distract with a movie.   
Doves gaze fell onto the coffee table but locked itself on spencer.  
“Hi.”, she said softly, making him grin “Hi.”, he returned. Patting on the empty pillows next to him, gesturing her to come and sit next to him. She grinned dropping on the pillow next to him, to his left. “That smells so good, but it´s a little much, isn’t it?”, Reid handed her an empty plate and cutlery. “I wanted to make sure we find something you really like. Okay, we let’s start with the side dishes. That´s Pakoda, that’s fried vegetables in a chickpea flour. That´s Parotta, a layered flatbread. They pan it in oil and actually it´s also eaten in Malaysia and Singapore under the name Roti Canai and they like to eat it for breakfast. That’s why I ordered some more, if we have some left we can try that tomorrow!”, Dove smile at him. “What? I´m sorry I now I talk a lot I-“, she took one of the hands he was aggressively gesturing with while taking, a little scared he would accidently hit her. “Everything fine. I like listening to you. You know so much.”, she pointed at one of the dishes in front of her. “So. What´s that?” Spencer gave her a big smile. Somehow she calmed the storm inside his mind and made it easier for him to be more like who he was before prison.

While they were eating they had a lot of different topics they talked about. They talked about Spencer and his job at the BAU, from that the trailed off to talk about some of the serial killers he had caught in his time and from that they talked about the psychological impact of childhood trauma. Then the conversation took a curve and they talked about classic books and how confusing it was that ‘pride and prejudice’ was now, under the young people, THAT love story everyone had to read and like. Then Dove took a fork full of her vegetable biryani in her mouth and grimaced her face in disgust. She pulled a little green seed out of her mouth, wrapping it into a napkin.  
“Oh, that´s a cardamom! You know there are very little in one cooking pot for the whole family, maybe one or two, so some people and cultures say that if it lands in your mouth, you get a wish.”, Spencer said and took another bite of his samosa. “Great, cause I wish I’d never bitten into it.”, Dove laughed while taking a sip of her mango lassi. Then she opened one of the last containers, that was still closed. In it where some red chilies. She took one of them and took a bite. The same time Spencer tried to warn her. “Careful, they are really hot!”, but Dove only looked at him, happily chewing on her chili. “I like it. Not that spicy.”, the older one looked at him in disbelieve and against his better judgment, took a bite of one. 

Hot. Way to hot! He let the chili fall on his plate, felt his face go red and Dove handed him her mango lassi. Spencer greedily took some sips. She laughed and in situations like these he normally felt like people were laughing at him, but with Dove he felt like she was laughing with him. So he too started laughing. Just as he wanted to wipe away one of the tears from laughing, Dove grabbed his hand. “Don’t touch you face! Wash them first!”, he nodded and got up to wash his hands in the kitchen sink. When he sat back next to her, she was already eating her third chili. “So you like it spicy? Yo- Your food I mean!”, he nervously laughed, thinking Dove would comment about him being ‘unprofessional’ but she only nodded, happily taking another one. “Did you know that the chemical in chili peppers that makes them spicy is called capsaicin? It´s also the some chemical that stimulates your pain receptors.”, the younger one looked back and forth between him and her chili. “Sooo…I´m a masochist?”, Spencer shrugged. “Mabey. I mean there is a percentage chance that you are.”, the white-blonde girl took a bite from her samosa. “Nice.”

**************

After they had eaten, they washed the dishes together. Again they were talking about an array of topics. It proofed Spencer´s theory, that you could talk for hours with Dove without ever running out of topics or getting bored. Of course a smaller minded person, like her ex-boyfriend, would not be able to appreciate her, but Spencer? He cherished every minute with her. The rest of the evening, they sat on the couch talking. Then, out of the blue, the small girl started to interrogating him.  
“You read my folder, right?”  
“How do you know?”, Spencer asked.  
“Well, first of all, I am not stupid and secondly? Why else would the FBI show up, when a college girl hangs herself?”  
“A little profiler, aren’t we?”, Dove grinned. “Mabey, professor.”  
“It´s weird that you still call me professor, how about just calling me Spencer. At least until we´re on campus again?”  
“Okay, Spencer.”, his heart again skipped a beat. Spencer had to tell himself, to not ask her to say his name again. But the way she said it, just made him feel a certain type of way.  
“Did you check on Miller?”  
“Dove…I really shouldn’t talk with you about that.”  
“But without me, you wouldn’t have a case. I just want to know if I was right.”, he sighed.  
“You were. With every little detail you had…I never asked you: What do you want to be when your-“  
“When I´m an adult?”, Dove interrupted, making Spencer chuckle.  
“No! When your done with college.”, Dove looked into the air, her expression changed.  
“My mother.”, she took a deep breath. “She and her husband are paying for my education. So they think they can control me. When it comes to them, I will graduate as an honor student and work for the next few years in the campaign-team of her husband. Then I´ll marry one of his business partners and have the perfect two-and-a-half children. Becoming a housewife and mother who starts drinking wine at 3p.m.”, she chewed on the inside of her cheek.  
“Why does your stepfather need a campaign-team for? Does he want to become Mayor?”, Dove laughed and shook her head.  
“My stepfather is Pete Russo.”, Spencer made big eyes. “The senator is your stepfather? How come I´ve never seen you on the news?”, Dove nodded. “Because I am the black sheep of the family. My mom had me when she was seventeen, thinking her high school sweetheart would marry her, when she gets pregnant.”  
“And that worked?”, Dove laughed a little. “Oh no! He was so unhappy about it, that he moved to Europe as soon as he could. Never to be heard of again. That´s why our mother-daughter-dynamic isn’t the best, as you may have noticed.” Oh yes he had. No mother would act the way hers had, when the niece and best friend of her daughter dies. She started to look at her hands.  
“In her opinion I was born with only one purpose: To keep the family together. But since that didn’t work out, I was marked as mistake. She met my stepfather when I was ten and he instantly got divorced for her. They married and had kids, my three brothers, all with the name Russo. Not me though. He offered it, since it would´ve been good for his campaign. ‘Loving Husband and Father adopts wife´s daughter from previous relationship’. But my mom didn’t want that. I didn’t belong into her family picture anymore and I am only relevant when I do something, she can show off to with, to her friends.”, she looked him in the face again and smile her perfectly fake smile. “Sorry. You didn’t ask for that.”, Spencer brushed a lose strand of hair behind Doves ear. “What would you do if you´d have a chance?”  
“Something with psychology. The Human mind is so fascinating and I really enjoyed the stuff I had to do for the folder I gave you. Mabey I would start working with you?”  
“But you would need a lot of training first and you´d need to already be an FBI agent for a while before coming to the BAU.”, Dove squinted her eyes. “How old were you?”  
“Touché. I was twenty-two. But I was a exception. A friend met me when I went to college, making my third PhD. He saw potential in me and recruited me to join the BAU, which he and his friend hand established.”  
“Is he still at the BAU?”, Spencer licked his lips.  
“No- No he…He passed away a while ago.”  
Dove leaned back on the couch. “Losing people sucks.”  
“Yes it does.”  
Her eyes became a little glassy.  
“Will it ever stop hurting?”, he thought about that. Does it? The doctor still mourned the death of Maeve. The one woman who was able to understand him, the only woman who was able to like and maybe even love him, just the way he was. With all the weirdness and quirks. He would never be able to forget her, to lose the feeling of guilt, for her death, to love another woman. Just as there would never be a woman, who would ever be able to love him.  
“It stops to hurt somewhere along the line. And then it´s just happy memories, followed by the sad thought of never being able to have new once with that person again.”, he hadn’t noticed that a tear was running down his cheek. Spencer judged Dove for bottling up her emotions, but he somehow did the same. He jumped a little as he felt Dove´s hand wiping away that tear. “I´m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. Let´s change the subject!”, she looked in the air while thinking.  
“I don’t hate you.”, Dove said so quietly, Spencer almost didn’t hear it.  
“What?”  
“At campus…I said I hate you, but I don’t. I- I was just sad…and angry.”  
“Don’t worry about it. I should´ve listened to you, but I was so fixated on not wanting to have to deal with anything going on in college while I´m at the BAU, that I refused to see what you were showing me.”, her blue eyes met his hazel ones.  
“If teaching annoys you so much, why are you doing it?”  
“It´s not annoying me. I love it! But since I got the order to work three weeks as a professor, for every hundred days at the BAU…It stopped being a hobby and now it just feels like I am being forced.”  
“Why did you get that order?”, Spencer wasn´t ready for that conversation and he didn’t know how Dove would react. How would someone react finding out their professor was in prison, while your sitting on their couch? And more than that, he wasn’t able to confront his demons just yet.  
“I- I have been through some stuff…They think it helps me.”, Dove nodded.  
“If you ever want to talk to someone…about all that, I´m here.”  
“Thank you, Dove.”  
Now they just sat there. Two people who had formed a strange bond over the loss of people they loved. The silence was broken by Dove yawning.  
“Tired?”, the doctor asked. “A little. It was a long day…”  
“You can sleep in my bed, I´ll take the couch.”, she smiles and shook her head.  
“No way, prof- I mean Spencer. I´ll take the couch. You need to be well rested for your work. Can´t catch Murderers when you´re sleepy.”, Spencer got up and got her a pillow and a warm blanked. Dove made herself comfortable on the couch and spencer took a quick shower, washing off the day. When he came into the living room, to check up on his guest. She was already sleeping. ‘Like an angel’, Spencer thought to himself. Of course he knew angels weren´t real. But literature described them as beautiful as he thought Dove was. He went to bed and for the first time in a while fell into a calm and resting slumber.

***************  
When he woke up the next day, Dove was already gone. The blanked and pillow tidily folded and stacked. Even if it was ridiculous, he was sad, he had wished to spend more time with her. Of course he understood. She probably had early classes and she needed to switch rooms too, but he would have loved to eat breakfast with her.  
He went up to his fridge, ready to eat some of the indian left overs. When he opened the fridge there was a plate with two Parottas on them, filled with something and wrapped like burritos. Next to them was a little pink note:

“Hope they are really a good breakfast idea!  
One filled with chana masala & one with tandoori chicken. :)  
\- Dove”

Next to her name was a little heart. Spencer touched it and felt this weird skipping of his heartbeat again. Then he took the plate, wondering if she had only made him breakfast or if she´d eaten herself too. He sat on his desk, wanting to eat while doing some of his paperwork, when he saw an envelope, leaned against his desk lamp. On it, with her beautiful handwriting stood:

“CAUTION!  
Dirty 50$ Note!  
Open at your own risk!”

Spencer chuckled a little. Dove was special. He started to eat his breakfast and wished he could´ve shared with her. It was actually really good. A little oily and way to much, but still really good. His phone buzzed and he thought it would be Emily telling him when she was coming to pick him up, as she always did when they had an case. But to his surprise it was Dove.

“Good Morning.  
Sry i´m already gone.  
Wanna get my key before classes :)  
Have you looked in the fridge?”

His heart skipped a beat and Spencer really started to wonder if that was a reaction to Dove or if he was getting sick. He quickly typed.

“Yes. Really good!  
Did you eat breakfast?”

“I don’t like eating, when I am alone :)  
Don´t worry, I´ll eat something later.  
Waiting for my keys @ my dorm right now!  
Talk to you later.”

When he was done eating and writing his papers, he got ready and waited for Emily. He also took a second to write his friend Derek. Since Morgan had left the team, the talked or wrote at least twice a week.

“Hey, quick question.  
What does it mean, when my heart skips a beat, every time I talk to a certain woman?  
Is it related or should I go to the doctors?”

Then he got an message from Emily telling him she would be here in five minutes. Reid grabbed his bag and went outside. Well rested and ready to crack this case.  
Spencer hadn’t forgotten about professor Miller.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As one of the girls in Dove´s dorm commits suicide, she feels like something´s not quite right about it. As she tells her professor, Dr. Spencer Reid, he has a hard time believing her.
> 
> A/N: English isn´t my first language, but I had this idea and really wanted to put it to paper! It would also be nice if this would improve my language skills...

Both view´s

“A threat should never be spoken, your enemy should not be told of your intentions. Either take decisive action or refrain from it, but never threaten”  
― Soke behzad Ahmadi

Dove Wallace´s view

Dove was waiting on the steps to her dorm. She knew from the secretary of the decan that a teacher was assigned to meet her here and give her the key to her new room. She wondered if it would be Dr. Reid. Dove liked him. He was very kind and she loved talking to him. Looking around the campus she saw a lot of people but no Reid, so she took out her phone and went through her social media. She stopped when she saw a post from an annoying girl from her dorm, both Ellie and she didn’t like.

“R.I.P Elly-Bear  
Heaven has gained a new angel today.

Don’t DM me. I´m mourning <3”

Dove rolled her eyes and closed her app.   
Instead she opened her gallery, going through some photos she made in Dr. Reid´s apartment. They were made from Spencer notes and files, filled with information on Christian Miller. Formerly known as Christoph Arthur. She knew he would be very angry if he found out, but she had the right to know these things.   
Christoph Arthur. He was in an mental institution? A shepherd protecting his sheep.

“Good morning, Ms. Wallace.”, her blood froze in her veins. She looked up from her phone and sure enough, there he stood. Professor Christian Miller.   
How should she react?   
What should she say?   
Dove forced herself to stay calm, he did not know that she knew, who and what he was. “Good morning, Professor!”, she answered as polite as possible, while putting on her best trained smile. Then she stood up and shook the grey haired man’s hand.  
“I was told by the decan, that you got assigned a new room. How exciting!”, he rubbed his cleanly shaved jaw. “I was asked to be so kind and bring you the new key.”, Dove looked him up and down. His thin, pushed back grey hair, the knitted sweater, this priggish smile. How could he look so much like a serial killer and not at all, at the same time?  
“Th- Thank you very much, Sir.”, She opened her hand, ready to receive the key but he only smiled. “Oh! I hope you understand, but I need to bring you to your new room and inspect it first.”, she nodded and walked inside with him.  
As they stood in the elevator Professor Miller started talking again. His voice was deep but had a kind of sing-sang to it that made Dove uncomfortable.  
„I heard what happened to Miss Price. Really sad.“  
„Yeah.“, she started chewing her bottom lip. The white blonde girl hated the game he was playing with her, with everyone. She knew all his cards, but all she could do was watch and wait for him to make a mistake.  
„Hanging herself….well, she sure had her demons. But I like to see thinks from the bright side. You were her best friend and would’ve done everything for her. You helped her so much with her addiction and she just couldn’t let go. You gave so much and she chose it over you.“, the white blonde girl did her best to hide her anger about his words. Silently grinding her teeth. He tried to get into her head. She couldn’t let him.

„You know, Dove, I once had a friend like that to.”, yes she knew, she read about him in Spencer´s notes. “Sometimes it’s the best to cut yourself from this negativity and move on.“, they got out of the elevator and walked straight to room 24. The professor opened the door and they went in.   
It was a bit smaller then her previous room and only had one bed in it. Dove was glad about that. She wasn’t good at making friends and so she didn’t have to worry about having a new roommate. Miller looked around in the room and whistled. „How nice.“, his happy words sounded so fake in Doves ears. „Now you can finally concentrate on you classes! You know, I am always worried about my students. For my you kids are like-“, Dove interrupted him   
„Like your sheep?“  
The second she said it he looked at her with a surprised grin. Planned as a passive aggressive comment, it instead seemed to have made him really happy.   
„Yes. I would say so. Young people like you remind me so much of myself. So much compassion, so much Potential. There is nothing worse for me, then to witness you being corrupted by parasites. Always wanting your attention and hindering you from achieving you best“. The way he moved his body to his words, his gesture…he was like an wild animal looking for prey. Looking for a weakness within her. He stepped closer to her and she could feel her heart beating fast. Mentally she prepared herself for screaming.   
„You know, I feel like we need to talk with each other about some rumors surrounding you lately.“, this grin, she hated it. „W- What rumors?“, his grin grew wider. „Some students seem to think you grew quite close to a colleague of mine. Dr. Reid.”, she was confused. There weren’t any rumors, were there? No. Of course not. He just tried to get into her head. She knew that it was obvious that she had anxiety and was scared of what people thought about her. Miller just took advantage of her insecurities and problems. Like he always did.  
“Given that we try to build up good relationships with our students, I usually wouldn’t think anything of it...“, he sighed. Only now Dove realized he was circling her. „But then I looked at you grades and given the company you held until now it started to make sense.“, Dove wanted to scream. „What are you implying, Professor? That I have sexual relations with a teacher of mine, for better grades?“  
He looked her up and down, scanning her body language.   
„As I said it’s all just speculations. Some even say that you left with him last night. Dove, they are concerned.“, he laid an hand on her shoulder. „I am concerned. How about we go into my office and talk a little.“, The small girl shook of his hand and took a step back. „N- No, thank you.“  
His smile grew bigger, trying to suggest trust and friendliness.  
„If you’re uncomfortable to be seen around the counselor’s office, we now also have an app, on which you can make appointments with us teachers and we can video chat. Some students quite enjoy it, since they get to be there with the other without needing to be there and they still see…everything.“   
“T- Thank you. I´ll think about it.”, then he seemed to think about something.  
“By the way, did Ellie Price parents already pick up her belongings?”  
“No, I- I don’t think so. Why?”, he just smile and shrugged.  
“I just thought about Ellie Price, she had our app on her computer. So you could just use hers meanwhile. Just a thought, but I really think you would benefit from talking to me.”  
The notebook!   
A sudden realization crashed down on Dove.   
He didn’t kill them, he made them kill themselves and stayed with them through video chat, just to see what he had caused and to excide himself.  
„You can tell me all you secrets. I am very trustful, I’d never tell a soul.“, Dove whispers to herself.  
„So you can judge, if I’m worthy to stay alive?“, Miller still blinked at her a couple of times. “I am sorry? What were you saying?“, she realized that she had made a mistake and just hoped he hadn’t heard what she had said. All she could do now was backtrack. „N- Nothing. I- Wow! I am tired! Thank you so much for the keys, but I really need to do my moving now. Don’t wanna be late for class.“, the white haired girl quickly stepped into the hallway, were some girls were getting ready for early class and breakfast.  
She locked opened her old shared bedroom and found it in a state of chaos. Somebody had come in and clearly looked for something. Probably Miller in desperate search for Ellie’s notebook. But Dove clearly remembered one of Spencer’s colleagues taking it. She closed the door behind her and started to dial Dr. Reid’s number.

„Reid here.“  
„Dr. Reid! Hi!“, she tried to not sound stressed, but it clearly didn’t work. Her hands were shaking so much, she nearly dropped her phone.  
„Hi…Everything alright? You sound stressed. Did something not go right with the new room?“,  
„No. No. I- it’s just…Professor Miller brought me my keys.“, she could hear him grinding his teeth.  
„…do you need me to come over?“, he sounded calm, yet observant. Like he did last night when he held down Logan.  
„No. Don’t worry. It’s just that he asked me to come to his office and I declined and then he told me about a new app they had.“  
„An App?“  
„Yes! Students can log on and make appointments with teachers and even video chat with the counseling teachers when they have problems, but are too afraid to be seen in their office.“  
„You don’t think…“  
„Yes I do! What if Miller used the app to watch Ellie killing herself? It would fit his god complex and give him an alibi. He also looked for Ellie’s notebook and I know you guys have it. Don’t you have a smart tech person, to see if they find something on her computer?“  
„We have the best. Don’t worry about it, we will interrogate him after we’re done talking with Mrs. Price.“  
„Aunt Cilia is here?“  
„Yes. We’re in my class, if you wanna pick her up. I bet she would be happy.“  
„S- Sure. Yeah… I’ll be right there!“

***************

When Dove arrived at the auditorium, she took a deep breath before going in. There was her crying Aunt Cecilia Price. She wasn’t surprised that her uncle wasn’t there. Her mother’s brother was an alcoholic and never really cared for anything else. That’s why Cilia kicked him out when Ellie was twelve. That was shortly before Dove started to live with them for a year.   
When Cilia saw her, she ran up to the white blonde girl and hugged her, whispering Spanish words of motherly love in her ears. The Latina then took Doves hand and walked down to the officers again. Instead of the old italian man from yesterday, there was a younger blonde woman with them. „Agents, that’s my niece! She found my baby yesterday.“, Cilia did not let go of Doves hand but grabbed it tighter. „We already know each other.“, Spencer answered slightly smirking in the white blonde girls direction. „Hi.“, Dove greeted the other two agents.   
Cilia whipped her tears again. „We can leave now, I suppose?“, Spencer eyed Dove and she tried to ignore it, feeling her cheek getting red. „Of course. Thank you for your time.“, the blonde and the brown haired women shook Cecilia’s hand. Spencer only stood up. „ Please take care of yourself. I know it’s hard to think about anything else but you should already get some breakfast. I’ll inform the Decan that Dove is excused from her classes.“ Celia thanked him by hugging him. He took that time to wink at Dove. That sucker! He really tricked her into getting breakfast.   
Then her aunt took her by the arm and dragged her out of the auditorium. At the door they met the italian agent, next to him Professor Miller. The look he gave Dove almost made her very uncomfortable. As if he was looking straight to her soul, trying to connect her and his upcoming interrogation.

***************

Spencer’s view

Spencer was thankful Dove hadn’t said anything to Miller. He didn’t want that guy to think Dove had anything more to do with their investigation, then being the roommate of the recently deceased student. As the man in his mid-fifties sat there in front of them, with his legs crossed, he gave them a smug smile. „ Hello, Dr. Reid. How can I help you agents? We really need to hurry, my classes start in thirty minutes and I have a long day ahead of me. I assume it´s about the death of one of my students? Ellie?”, Spencer scanned him. The way he was holding himself was confident, a little too self-assured. Both had met before and had long conversations about the different book assignments Professor Miller had given his students. Lots of classics. Spencer had had great respect for the professor, until he had read Doves folder. Now he just watched him, waiting for the man to make a mistake.   
“Mr. Miller, you are the English professor and part of the counselors office, right?”, JJ asked.  
“Yes. It´s a pleasure forming and influencing the next generation.”  
“What can you tell us about Ellie Price?”, Emily askes with a stern look and Miller pursed his lips.  
“Very extroverted, athletic, addicted to different substances. Troubled. This was the only possible outcome.”, Rossi raised his eyebrows.  
“A little harsh, don’t you think?”, Miller shook his head, but never stopped smiling.  
“No, agent. She felt guilty for her addiction and how it effected everyone around her. The poor girl she shared the room with, Dove Wallace, has so much potential but always put Ellie first. She really suffered under Ellies addiction.”, Spencer gave Emily a look. Both knew the doctor couldn’t be a big part of Millers interrogation, given that they were colleagues.  
“Well, Miss Wallace said she knew about Ellie Price addiction to painkillers. But she did not suffer under Ellies addiction. According to the decan, she is one of the smartest student in her semester, probably even in the entire college.”, Miller rolled his eyes and smiled at the dark haired woman.   
“Of course she said that. She´s a loyal friend.”  
JJ´s phone rang. She answered, had a short conversation, put her phone away and walked right in front of Miller.

“Your counseling app. Nice.”, he smiled at her proudly.  
“I do what I can to protect and help our children.”, JJ chuckled.  
“Yeah. You know, we have an amazing technical analyst and she found out, with the help of Ellie Price´s notebook, that you both had an online counseling during her suicide. We also would like to check your computer for any kind of evidence.”, his smile vanished.  
“I don’t know what you´re talking about and without a court order, I won´t let you do anything.”, Emily came closer.  
“Well I also think now would also be a great timing to talk about your past a little, don’t you? Mister Arthur?”, now he jumped up and started walking to the door.  
“I know my rights, Agents. Without courts order and without my lawyer, I don’t have to do anything.”, again he started to smile. “If you excuse me now, I have a class in a few minutes.”

“That worked out great.”, Emily sighed and sat in the seats, while JJ called a friend for the needed court order. Spencer set next to Emily.  
“We should have handled that better. Call him to the police station, keep him there-“, Rossi interrupted him. “And what would we´ve told them? That man-” he pointed at the door Miller had walked out of minutes earlier, “-knows what he´s doing. He has perfected it over the years and even if we can proof he had a videocall with Ellie Price when she hung herself, that’s it! The defense could easily say that he ended the call when she was still alive but very upset. The suicide happened minutes later.”, Spencer licked his lips while running his hands through his hair.  
“We shouldn’t have told him, that we know about his name. What if he runs off?”, Emily shook her head. “He won´t. His narcissistic personality makes him think he´ll get away with it. We´ll use his fake sense of security and let him dig his own grave.”

***************

Dove Wallace´s view

It was already dark when Dove came back from dinner with her aunt.   
They had spent the whole day getting Doves new room ready, talking about Ellie, crying.   
Now Cilia was in her hotel and Dove packed the last three boxes with books and carried them to the elevator. When she got on the third floor, she put one of the boxen in the elevator door, preventing it from closing, she opened the door to her room and started to carry the first box into her room. Everyone was out for dinner and the hallway was empty, somehow that Dove felt anxious. A little ironic, given that she normally was anxious around people. She knew that the chances of Miller hearing what she had said were small but she often liked to overthink and today she overthought as if she would get a price for it.  
But she knew she would feel safer if she´d call somebody she trusted. Of course it was Reid.

“Hello, Dove.”  
“Hi.”, she was nervous, was it weird to call him?  
“Everything alright?”  
“Yeah, I- I´m just carrying my last boxes into my room and I- I don’t know…”  
“You felt lonely?”  
“Yeah…kinda…Can I ask you something?”  
“Sure.”, Spencer sounded a little worried.  
“Does this thing from the movies work? You know, that you guys can find someone with just their sim card in their pocket.”, Dove knew she was a little paranoid, but it would´ve really made her feel better to know. Spencer chuckled.  
“Well, I personally can´t. But my friend Penelope can. Why are you asking?”  
“I don’t know…I think I said something stupid today and Miller heard it.”  
“WHAT?”  
“Please don’t be mad.”  
“I- I am not mad. What did you say?”  
“I don’t know, Something along the lines of ‘So you can manipulate me too?’. But I think he hasn’t heard it.”  
“Dove…Stay where you are. I am coming over. Miller should be home by now but just in case. Stay in your room. Understood?”  
“Yes.”  
“Good Girl. I´ll be right there.”

Dove began to smile. Spencer would come and protect her. But just in case she put her sim card from her phone into her left sock. The elevator doors made her jump a little as they were trying to close. She quickly pulled out the last to boxes and send the elevator on its journey. She´d just carried the next-to-last box inside and wanted to get her last box from the hallway, when Professor Miller walked out of the elevator.   
Dove froze in place. He stormed up to her and grabbed her by the arm. “I think we should have a conversation. Don’t you, Miss Wallace?”, he dragged her into her bedroom and closed the door, reinforcing his grip on Dove arm.  
“You know, I wondered all day, how the FBI got my name.”, she struggled to get away from the tall man. “I- I don’t know what you´re talking about! Please let go of me!”. A manic laugh escaped his lungs. “Oh you do know! Because I called an old friend back home and their seems to have been a young woman lately, called Dove, calling and asking a lot of questions about good, old Christoph Arthur.”, he grabbed her hair in a fist and forced her face closer to his. “Does that bring back memories?”  
He forced her to sit on her bed, then sat his bag on the desk, to the left of the beds foot. There he took a packet of pills and a bottle of water out. “I really thought you were smarter then that, Dove.”, he handed her the water and the pills. “You know what you have to do now. I can´t have you cause more problems as you already have.”, Dove looked at him, tears started to gather in her eyes. She started to realize the seriousness of the situation.   
“I- I don’t want to die.”, he laughed again, now clearly on the bridge of losing his temper. “And I don’t want to lose one of my Sheep. But since I now have the FBI in my back, I need to get rid of the problem child in my herd.”, Miller pulled out a hunting knife, pointing at the pills in Dove´s hands. “Take them.” Dove didn’t know what to do, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. She opened the bottle and took the first pill, slowly moving it to her mouth. On his posture and the way his muscles relaxed, Dove could see Miller had calmed down, thinking he´d won. She scanned the room, swallowing the first pill. He stood slightly to her left, the door was on the right. When she was able to distract him, she could run outside, but she had to be fast. That was Doves only chance. 

She threw the bottle into his face and ran. There was no time for the elevator, so she ran down the stairs. On the second floor she stopped, ran to the fire alarm and pulled the switch. Dove smiled as the loud alarm went off and kept running down the stairs. But on the half floor, Miller had caught up with her. He pulled her on her hair, keeping her from running. She started to scream, threw her arms around, scratching it face in the prosses. “Ah! Little Bitch!”, then he smashed her head into the wall, making Doves world go black.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As one of the girls in Dove´s dorm commits suicide, she feels like something´s not quite right about it. As she tells her professor, Dr. Spencer Reid, he has a hard time believing her.
> 
> A/N: English isn´t my first language, but I had this idea and really wanted to put it to paper! It would also be nice if this would improve my language skills...

Spencer´s view

“We'd stared into the face of Death, and Death blinked first. You'd think that would make us feel brave and invincible. It didn't.”  
― Rick Yancey, The 5th Wave

When Spencer arrived, almost thirty minutes later, several firetrucks and nosey students awaited him. The overheard conversations told him that there wasn’t a fire. His look scanned the crowd, in the hopes to find his white blonde student. Nothing.  
He pulled out his badge, walked into the dorm and took the elevator into the third floor. The second he got out of it, a cold chill ran down his back. Doves door was open. “Dove?”, he called out, only to receive no answer. As he walked into the bedroom, on the floor in front of him was a puddle of water, wet foot prints around it. The plastic bottle belonging to it, lay next to the desk.   
He carefully walked around it.   
Next to the bed lay a little carton. Sleeping Pills. The feeling overcame Spencer suddenly, but he knew he was too late. Yet, there wasn’t a body. There was still a chance that Dove was alive. Now he started to feel his heartbeat raise, desperately trying to find another clue of what happened.  
There on the desk, this bag was too big to be Dove´s. He walked over, rummaged through it and pulled an ID out. It only confirmed what Reid had already known and feared. Miller.  
His head was spinning and his breathing became irregular. This fear, the panic, the loss of control. All that reminded him of Maeve. He would be too late, again. Frowning and running his hands through his hair, his gaze fell on Dove´s bed. There was her phone. He grabbed it and checked for her sim card. If she´d been with him, he´d probably kissed her. That smart, weird young woman. His hands were shaking a little as he started to call Penelope.  
“Speak fast, boy genius!”, she answered as happy as always.  
“Penelope, thank god. The student from a few weeks ago-“, the lively lady interrupted him.  
“The one you made cry?”, the doctor rolled his eyes.  
“Penelope! Miller has her!”  
“Oh no! The British creep? How can I help?”  
“She has her sim card with her. Can you find her location?”, the man closed his eyes, as if this was able to shield him from a ‘No’.  
“Of course I can! Give me two minutes!”, Spencer could hear her typing.

While Penelope tried to track down Doves location, he walked down the stairs. There wasn’t any sign of a fight in the elevator and given that she had to flee from Miller, she most likely took those. In the half floor between the second and first floor, Miller had caught Dove. Near the last flight of stairs, on the wall was blood. Not enough to suggest death, but given the placement Dove´s head probably got smashed into the wall. Miller wasn’t normally that aggressive, so she probably fought him and ruined his plan of staging her suicide. He lost his temper and knocked her out and since she probably pulled the fire alarm, he had to get out quick. Taken her with him.

“Okay, I have her!”, Penelope snapped Spencer out if his thoughts.  
“Where?”, he quickly ran down the stairs, to his car. He usually never drove, but today he had made an exception. Being quick was the most important thing in the moment.  
“She´s still moving, but given the location there’s no other way…Miller is taking her to ‘Antlers Quarry’. An old limestone quarry, outside the city, that is now filled with 200-250 feet water. The college kids used it as a test of courage. They got drunk and jumped of the rockface sixty-feet down into the water. The College forbit it after a drunk, young man jumped down and broke his back, five years ago.”, Spencer was already driving, thick Snowflakes had started to fall from the sky. He knew were the quarry was, the decan had told him about that rule and asked him to report if overheard students talking about partying there.  
“Anything else?”, he took a sharp turn, cars behind him honking.  
“Yes! The only way you can get there, with your car, is by the rockface, there’s a path straight to it! The other side of it is all forest and not reachable with any kind of vehicle.”  
“Thanks, Garcia. Inform the team and send an ambulance, Dove´s probably hurt.”, then he hung up and started to drive even faster. He wouldn’t be to late. Not this time.

***************  
Dove´s view

When Dove woke up everything was dark. Her hands carefully touched her left side of her forehead. The pain was enormous. She quickly came to the conclusion, that she was in Millers trunk. Were was he taking her? The white blonde girl almost lost her consciousness, but she forced herself to stay awake by slightly slapping her head wound. The pain helped her stay focused. Then she started to rip out some of her hair and place it all around the trunk and in every little hollow. She had seen enough true crime shows to know, that even if this would be her end, her DNA would be everywhere, making it easy for the Police, to get Miller to pay for his crimes. All of the sudden, the car stopped. Dove could hear her professor get out of it and walk up to the trunk. She prepared herself to punch him and try to flee, but when Miller opened it Dove couldn’t move a muscle. The light of his flashlight made her head feel like he was going to explode.  
“Oh! Now look who´s awake again.”, he snickered with his smug smile. The grey haired teacher pulled her out of the trunk, by her arms. The shock from cold air and the snow under her feet made it easier for her to collect her thoughts. He made Dove stand next to him, loosening his grip. She took a chance and head bumped her forehead against his nose and tried to run. Only a few feet later she tripped over her own feet, she just wasn’t fit enough to run. Everything was spinning around her. Dove sat up and tried not to lose consciousness again. Miller meanwhile came up to her, grabbing a fist full of her hair and started pulling her to the rockface of the quarry.

“Let go of her, Arthur!”, Dove looked around, somewhat confused. She knew that voice. She would recognize that voice everywhere. It was Spencer. Miller actually listened and let go of Dove, but she wasn’t able to walk, so Spencer came to them. His gun pointing at his former colleague. “Put your hands where I can see them.”, Spencer´s thumb moved to her chin, making look to the right, so he can inspect her wound.   
“Are you okay?”. Thinking was hard in the moment but the girl still remembered something. “Knife…Spencer! He has a knife!”, just as she had spoken Miller jumped at Spencer, taking advantage of the doctors focus laying on Dove. The crazy professor overpowered Spencer, throwing his gun down into the bushes. He laughed maniacally as he tried stabbing Spencer. The young woman desperately wanted to help but lost her consciousness every few seconds.   
The next time she opened her eyes Spencer was dragged to the steep cliff by Miller. He had wounded Reid. The grey haired man, threw him to the ground and picked up a large rock next to him.  
“You know, all I did was creating a better life for the people around me. But you and that little bitch over there, just couldn’t appreciate it and had to ruin everything!, he yelled. Spencer tried to crawl away from the cliff, as Miller raised the rock over his head, preparing to smash the younger one´s skull. “Farewell, Dr. Reid.”  
The next seconds felt like hours for Dove. She was already running, before realizing it. The adrenalin had taken over. She rammed Miller, with all her strength and both fell down the cliff, crashing into the water below them.

The water was ice cold. Dove did her best to get her head over water but felt something pulling her down. She looked down and saw Miller holding onto one of her feet, she kicked his face, getting him to let go. When she reached the water surface, she took a few big breaths of air.   
She was alive!  
Sure, she wasn’t in the best condition, but she was alive!

From afar she saw Spencer rushing down the steep hill. “SPENCER!”, she threw one of her hands over her head, to make him notice her. “DOVE! FUCK!”, he almost tripped. “GET OUT OF THE WATER!”. Just as she started swimming to the shore, she felt that tucking on her feet again. Then Miller reached the surface, wrapping his arms around Dove, pulling her down. He couldn’t swim!  
As much as she tried getting away from him, Dove started to sink with him. She wasn’t strong enough the keep them both over water. Inch by Inch she watched the surface move away from her. Her last breath escaped her lungs and she felt the ice cold water filling them, vision going black.

***************  
Spencer´s view

As he reached the shore Dove was sunk under water. Miller couldn’t swim, so he had tried taking Dove as a lifebuoy. Spencer quickly removed his vest. Once in the water it would be dead weight on him. Then he got in. It was freezing and the now heavy snow made it hard for the doctor to see. He swam to the place Dove had drowned at and dived down.  
Her white hair was the first think he saw, then her unconscious angelic face. Like a little light in the darkness. Spencer grabbed her arms and pulled her close to him. Miller clinging at her, but he too, was unconscious. The doctor wrapped his arms around her small waist and kicked Miller a few times against the torso, making him letting go of Dove.  
He quickly reached the shore, laying her on the back. Spencer hovered with his cheek over her lips. She wasn’t breathing. He put his hands on top of each other on the center of her chest and started to push down.  
1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…10…11…12…13…14….Nothing, but he wouldn’t stop.  
15…16…17…18…19…20…21…22…23…24…25. Still Nothing.  
He lifted her chin, started to pinch her nose and gave her two one-second breaths. Nothing.  
“Come on, please.”, he cried, tears in his eyes. He began counting again.  
1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…10…11…12…13…14….Nothing, “Please..”  
15…16…17…18…19…20…21…22…23…24…25. He leant down and another breath. She opened her eyes and started coughing up water. Spencer quickly rolled her on the side, rubbing her back.   
“It´s okay, Dove. Everything´s okay! Let it out.”, he cooed “Good girl.”  
His arms wrapped around her, pulling her into a tight hug. She was still a little dizzy. Spencer pulled her closer, brushing the wet hair out of her face.  
“Hi.”, she whisper.  
“Hi.”, he answered, still close to tears. Doves arms pulled Spencer´s body closer.  
“So…cold.”, he stood up, carrying Dove bridal style.  
“I know, little bird.”  
As Spencer started walking up the steep hill, he had to realize that the snow had become to much. He didn’t have enough grip to get them both up there and the wet clothes didn’t help. They came so far! This couldn’t be how it ended.   
Then he slipped, slipping down the half the feet he had accomplished. He sat down and leaned against a tree, placing Dove between his legs. They had to wait and hope Penelope had send them support.  
“Hey. Hey, Dove! Stay awake.”, Spencer shook the girl in his arms a little. He couldn’t let her fall unconscious, he didn’t know if she would wake up again.  
“I´m so cold…so tired…”, he took her small hands and tried keeping the warm with his.  
“I know, but you need to stay with me.”, he started to feel tired himself. It was just so cold. “This is my fault. I´m sorry, Dove.”, he whispered. “No…”, she whined, her eyes half closed. Then she caught. “My lungs burn.”, Spencer chuckled.  
“That’s because you almost drowned.”, Dove whispered a little ‘oh..’ but then went quiet. He leaned closer to see her face. “Dove. Dove! No, no, wake up!”, he started shaking her “Fuck!”  
Then he heard it. Sirens. A blue-red light filled the sky on top on the hill. Hope.  
He got back up, feeling his body burn, from the immense cold. His grip tightened around Dove.   
Not again. He wouldn’t lose somebody close to him again!   
He forced himself to climb up the steep hill, when he heard people. Not only people, his people! Now he just needed to get their attention. “HELP!”, he heard a female voice. “EMILY! HERE!”, he yelled on top of his lungs. As he had almost reached the top, a couple of hands started to help him. Somebody took Dove from his arms and he heard Rossi talking to him. “Easy now.” He helped Spencer up on his feet and patted his shoulder. “Where´s, Arthur?”, Emily asked, helping Spencer walking up to the ambulance. “Drowned.”, his gaze fell to Dove, who was laying on a stretcher. “She saved me, Emily! That guy wanted to smash my head and she pushed him of the cliff.”  
“Tough girl.”, Rossi answered coming back to them with Spencer´s gun. “I think that´s yours, son.”, he handed it to Emily. When Spencer saw that the paramedics were putting Dove into the ambulance, he gave Emily a look and she nodded.   
“Hey, excuse me, Dr. Spencer Reid. To which hospital will you take her?”, one of the paramedics looked up at him.  
“Sacred Hearts, Sir.”, Spencer only nodded and took the clipboard from the young man’s hands and started to write something down.  
“Once you´re there, I want you to notify Dr. Davis Tanaka. He is a friend of mine. Tell him I send you. I want to have Dove Wallace go through a MRI and CT scan, echocardiogram, electrocardiogram and an EEG. Also I want a bloodtest to see her oxygen levels in her blood.”, Spencer gave him his clipboard back. “If you don’t take good care of her, we will have a problem, understood?”, the scared paramedic only nodded and got in the back of the ambulance.  
“One of you guys needs to drive me.”, Emily and Rossi only exchanged looks.

***************

When Spencer arrived in the hospital, Dove was already sitting awake in her bed. He knocked when he came in.  
“Hi.”, she grinned at him. His heart skipped a beat.   
“Hi. Damn, I wanted to be the first thing you see, once you wake up. How are you?”, he set next to her bed, wearing meanwhile almost dry clothes.  
“Sorry. But you were the first thing I saw, when I almost drowned. By the way, thanks”  
“Always.”, the quiet moment was interrupted by a very loud mans voice, followed by an hysteric woman. Dove and Spencer exchanged looks.  
“oh, no.”, her face went pale. “That´s my parents. Why are they here?”  
“Probably because we called them.”, she had an annoyed look on her face. “Why?”  
Spencer answered her look blankly. “What do you mean with ‘Why’? You almost died, that’s why.”  
“Fuck. I´m sorry.”, she whined. “For What?”, he didn’t understand.  
“Oh, you´ll see.”


	7. Chapter 7

“The happy family is a myth for many.”  
― Carolyn Spring

Spencer´s view

“Love-y Dove-y!”, a thin woman in her forties rushed into the hospital room. It wasn’t much of a shock for Spencer since he was able to hear her high heels from miles away. The woman, although looking similar to Dove, having the same small button nose and high cheekbones, had clear things distinguishing herself from her daughter.   
She has obviously dyed, blonde hair, part of it extensions, while Spencer still tried to figure out if Doves hair color was natural or not. Also were her features a little to smooth and a little stretched, a clear sign of plastic surgery. The way she held herself showed little to no empathy for her daughter, although trying to look like a loving and caring mother, her body language showed him that she was very concerned about what other people thought of her.   
Her clothes were from different designers, very boastful and their design youthful, not that there was a problem with that, but connected with the other things it made Spencer think that the mother clearly had problems with her advancing age.   
She went up to Dove, touching her freshly stitched headwound. “What happened? The lady on the phone was very vague. Did you trip again? She´s a little clumsy.”, she said to Spencer, while Dove sharply inhaled air and tried getting her mother to let to of her wound. “Yeah, Professor Miller was a psycho. He tried to kill me.”, the mother sat on the bed next to her, her pink Luis Vuitton bag on her lap. “What?”, she took a small box of pills out of her bag and took one, offering some to her daughter who declined. “I can´t believe you…He was always such a nice man!”, Spencer blinked a little at her. She really didn’t believe Dove, she crossed her legs. “Are you sure it was Professor Miller? I mean that college isn’t the best, I always told you to go to Yale.”, the younger one started to bite her lip. Then the older one wrinkled her nose. “You stink like an old pond, didn’t you shower today?”, the white blonde girl sighed a little and Spencer decided to jump in and help her.   
“Excuse me, Ma´am? Hello, I am SSA Doctor Spencer Reid. I am one of Doves Professors and special agent of the BAU.”, he shook her hand. “Aaliyah Russo.”, she pointed at Dove. “Did she do something wrong?”, Spencer chuckled a little in disbelieve. “I- I wanted to make sure Dove is okay. She almost drowned after saving my life and being kidnapped by my former colleague Professor Miller. You should be very proud of her.”, the older woman began to smile brightly, taking out her phone and starting to type. Dove looked at Spencer who sat back on his chair. “Thanks.”, she whispered quietly.   
Her mother grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her closer making a selfie. “Smile!” and then started to type again. “She´s posting on her social media.”, Dove explained, head snapping to the door when a dark haired, chubby, man in his mid-forties crashed in.   
“Pack your things, were leaving. Absolute incompetence.”, Dove flinched when he slammed the door shut. “Why, honey?”, Aaliyah stood up, and walked up to her husband, massaging his shoulders. Spencer had read in different newspapers, that Pete Russo was very hotheaded, but seeing him in person gave him the chance to observe his behavior up close. The senator gave his wife a piece of paper. She read it and then looked up to Dove and Reid. “I can´t believe that. Dove?”, her face was angry and the young girl instantly went pale. “Yes, Mom?”. “The bill shows about seven different tests. Did you cry again to get attention? Do you have any idea how expensive that is?”, Dove shook her had in panic. “N- No, Mom. I- I just-“, Spencer interrupted. “I ordered this tests.”, the senator gave Spencer a snobby look. “And you are a doctor?”, the younger man stood up and held out his hand. “Yes. SSA Doctor Spencer Reid. Nice to meet you, senator.” The Stepfather looked him up and down. “FBI? Why are you involved with my daughter?”  
“He´s one of my Professors in college and-“, the man raised a hand and Dove went silent. “Like Dove said, I am one of her Professors and she almost became the last victim to a serial killer hunting down young woman in college. Given that she almost drowned, I ordered these tests to make sure she wouldn’t suffer any aftereffects.”, his wife tapped his shoulder, “She also saved the Agent. She´s a hero.” the senator nodded, smiled big and stormed up to Dove, forcing her into a hung, then looked at her still sitting in her hospital bed. “Hurry up, were taking you home. I already checked you out.”, the mother went to her and gave the white haired girl her wet clothes. Dove went to the bathroom, for Spencer´s taste a little to wobbly. “Sir, with all respect: Dove should really stay here overnight. There is a high chance that she´ll will develop pneumonia during the next twenty-four hours and she has a concussion.”, the senator chuckled. “She´s fine. Our daughter´s just a little melodramatic sometimes.”, the taller young man tried to stay rational. “She almost died. I wouldn’t say she’s dramatic.”.  
Meanwhile Aaliyah had made the bed and joined the conversation again “That’s because you don’t know her like we do. Don’t worry about her, she likes causing chaos and would do anything to not having to go to school.”, she smiled pretentious. Dove came out of the Bathroom wearing her still slightly wet high waisted grey skinny-jeans, black turtleneck shirt and oversized, open, beige flannel. “Oh Dove-y. Did you gain weight?”, the young woman shook her head, while tying her semi-wet hair back, coughing a little. “Then it´s probably, that you dress like a boy.”, the blonde woman spoke these insults so unconcerned that Spencer could clearly sense were Doves insecurities came from. Both her parent were narcissistic personalities and the constant nagging from her mother came from her own deeply rooted insecurities. These people, this mother, they formed a harsh contrast to Cecilia Price, Doves aunt. He now understood why the young woman’s body language was so much calmer next to her, then right now. “Where´s your phone?”, Aaliyah asked and Dove looked confused, pulling her sim card out of her pocket. “I- I don’t really remember…”, Spencer closed Doves hand around the little card. “Hey, it´s in your bedroom. You put the sim card in your pocket so we could track and find you, remember?”, she nodded, the concussion really worried Spencer. “I- I put it in my sock.”, she added. “Our little Agent.”, the senator again hugged his stepdaughter, while his wife was taking photos. “Oh, she would be a great agents, right?”, the doctor only nodded in the mothers direction. “I´m tired.”, Dove said to mother and the senator clapped his hands. “Then we should leave. You have school tomorrow.”  
Spencer forced himself to stay quiet at that, only being able to waved Dove goodbye as she was shoved out the room by her parents.

***************

Dove´s view

On Thursday, two days after the incident, Dove bought an array of different donuts and muffins and walked into the headquarters of the FBI. She went through the tedious registration process when she saw a dark skinned, muscular man with a stroller walk straight threw it, greeting the security. When she got her visitor ID she quickly walked into the same elevator as the man. She leaned a little against the wall, still having some trouble because of her head injury. He smiled friendly at her.  
“What do I need to do, to get in that quick?”, Dove smiled, trying to make small talk, while waving at the little boy in the stroller, who smiled at her from ear to ear.  
“Try to have worked here for at least 10 years, at least that worked for me.”, the father of the little boy gave back. Dove grinned. “I think about it, thanks.”  
The man saw the way Dove and his son where looking at each other. “I´m Derek Morgan by the way and that Hank or as I like to call him Hank the Tank.”, the white blonde shook his hand “I´m Dove.”, then kneeled down to the toddler “Hi, Hank.”.   
When they reached the office of the BAU both, Dove and Derek, got out.  
“Hey we had the same way!”, Dove said surprised. “Next time we can share a Cab.” Derek replied with a cocky smile.  
Dove went straight to Spencer desk and put the baked goods down. The office seemed empty. Meanwhile Derek just walked in the middle of the room and just announced very loudly “Hello, hello! Favorite employee and baby are here to visit!”, suddenly a lot of doors opened and people ran up to him, to greet him. Some of the faces Dove recognized. There were the blonde women, the dark haired one and the italian man. She looked around and found Spencer coming out of the same room as a very colorful dressed blonde lady with pink glasses. He walked straight up to the man she met earlier and hugged him and then took the toddler out of the stroller. There was something about this man holding a baby, that Dove couldn’t really describe, but really liked.

***************  
Both view´s

Derek pulled Spencer a little closer after picking up Hank. “Pretty boy, you have a visitor.”, he pointed at Dove and Spencer started to smile. Luke, who followed their looks just grinned. “Hey, is that you little girlfriend?”, Spencer gave Hank to Penelope and Derek gave him a shocked look. “Is that the girl you were texting me about?”, Spencer blushed and, not wanting her to hear it. “Stop it! She´s my student!”. Emily poked the doctor in the rips. “I think you should introduce us to her.”, the blonde next to her nodded. “I mean you saved each other’s lives so…”, he sighed, then called over to Dove. “Hello, Dove! Come here.”, she smiled and walked towards him. “Hi.”, she smiled. “Dove I wanna introduce you to my friends. That´s Derek.”, both smiled at Spencer. “We already know each over!”, they said at the same time, leaving the doctor confused. “How?”. “We shared an elevator.”, Dove explained and Derek grinned as he added, “Next time we share a Cab.”, both laughed.   
Now the pink glassed lady walked between them. “Hey, your not flirting with anybody else, now do you, chocolate thunder?”, Derek hugged the lady. “Babygirl, you know you´re my one and only.”, Dove gave Spencer an confused look. “Don’t worry. That’s there thing. What are you doing here? How´s your wound?” He put his arm on her shoulder and walked her to his desk.  
The white blonde girl lifted her side part and reviled a laceration on the left side of her forehead bruised and treated with four stitches. “I know it looks bad, but trust me it feels worse.”, Spencer came closer and took her face in his hands, leaning down, carefully looking at her wound. “I don’t like the way it´s stitched. They left no room for swelling. That´s why it hurts like that.”, just now he realized how close he was to her. Looking straight into her beautiful eyes, he felt his breath growing heavy.   
“YO! No kissing in the office, Spencer!”, Luke yelled over to them, in a joking manner. Spencer quickly stepped back, clearing his throat, giving Luke an angry look. “That´s Luke Alvez, he likes to tease me, but he´s nice guy.”, Dove nodded. “I´m gonna get something for your wound.” Spencer said, lifting Dove up and setting her on his desk. The team watched him leave, then took a chance and started walking over to her, given Spencer didn’t introduce them, like he wanted. “Hiiii. I´m Penelope Garcia, you are Dove right? I´ve heard so much about you!”, Dove smiled shyly. “I don’t think there´s a lot to know…”, Penelope started to hold her hands. “Oh! There´s a lot, you are very smart and I LOVED the poem you won with at the Youth Poem Awards when you were sixteen.”, the young girl looked a little concerned as the dark haired woman started talking, “Emily Prentiss. Don’t worry about Garcia, she´s our technical genius and loves to do checkup’s on people…because she’s nosey.”, the pink glassed lady breathed in indignant. “That is nor true! JJ help me!”, the blonde woman shrugged. “You are kinda nosey…”, Dove chuckled and shook JJ hand. “I´m Jennifer Jareau, you can call me JJ. That are Luke Alvez and David Rossi.”, the italian man shook Doves hand. “So, you´re one of Spencer’s students. How´s our boy doing as a teacher?”, Derek asked. “He´s a great teacher, sometimes he drifts off and rambles about a complete different subject for half an hour but that’s fun.”, the team starts to laugh and nod. “He does that here too.”, Emily snickered and looked at the big babyblue box behind Dove. “Oh!”, Dove exhaled and grabbed the box, opening it. “I thought you´d might like a snack, as thank you for not letting me die yesterday.”, the team let out a bunch of ‘uuhhh’s and ‘aaahhh’s and grabbed some of the baked goods.  
When Spencer came back, he gave them a funny look and his team members stepped back. “Do I wanna know it?”, he looked at Dove for answers. “I bought snacks for your team.”. “And we decided to love her!”, added Penelope happily snacking away on her cinnamon roll. Dove offered the box to Spencer but he politely declined, stepping closer to her with a first aid kit in his hands. The white blonde girl went pale. “What are you planning on doing?”, she watched Spencer putting on gloves and tucking her hair behind her ear, so he´d have access to her stitches. “I am going to open these stitches and replace them with wound closure strips.”, he took a disinfecting wipe and wanted to clean Doves wound, when she grabbed his arm with both of her delicate hands.   
“I don’t know if you should do that, I can just go to the hospital.”. The team by now had mostly picked up there own conversations but still watched Spencer and Dove from time to time. “Dove, I am a doctor. I know what I am doing.”, she let him disinfect her wound but when he pulled out the scissor she held his hand again. “Technically speaking, you’re not a doctor in the medical field, so I don’t think you-“, he interrupted her. “Hey, I know the scissor scares you, but right now your stitches tear your skin because an idiot in the hospital did them to tight and the wound can´t swell. All I wanna do is cut them open, so they don’t leave a scar and stop hurting.”, the younger one started to frown, looking around and refusing to look at her professor. He took her by the chin and made her look at him. “Hey, do you trust me?”, she took a deep breath and let go of his arm, letting Spencer cut open the stitches, occasionally saying ‘ow’.   
“Almost done.”, he whispered, carefully placing the strips on the wound. “There we go, as good as new.”, he then placed a hand on her forehead. “You’re a little warm. You were in the cold water yesterday, I think you’re getting a fever.” Dove waved him off and grabbed a muffin, while Spencer cleaned the provisional operating table. Then sat on his chair grabbing a cinnamon roll. “Thank you.”, Spencer smiled at her. The girl handed him a little card. “Ellies funeral is tomorrow, I thought you´d maybe like to come…you don’t have to, my mom doesn’t come either so…”, she again didn’t look at him, fumbling around on her muffin. “Sounds good, do you want me to pick you up?”, she shook her head. “No, thanks. I wanna help aunt Cilia with the organizations. It´s hard for her, Ellie was her only child and we don’t know if my uncle comes, so there´s a lot of…tension.”, she out a hand on her wound and grimaced in pain. “You sure, you´re okay?”, Dove nodded. “Yeah, just a little overstimulated. I had classes all morning.”, the older one raised his eyebrows.   
“You´re joking.”, she shook her head. “You really went to school…after almost dying…with a concussion?”, he ran a hand through his hair. “My mom doesn’t like it when I´m skipping classes.”, Spencer nodded, calling over to Penelope. “Garcia? Please write a mail to the decan and all of Doves teachers with scan of my report on Miller and her medical documents from yesterday. Make sures she cant go to class the next week.”, the young girl shook her head. “What? No! I need to go to my classes. I´m in the middle of my exams!”, she explained to Spencer, who was already walking over to Garcia, handing her his report. Dove jumped up and ran over trying to take the report from him. The taller one simply lifted his arm, making his report unreachable for the younger one. “That´s not fair.”, she tried jumping up but Spencer held her down. Having to laugh at her struggle. “Stop jumping, you have an concussion.”, she stopped.   
“I need to go to school!”  
“No.”  
“How about a deal, I stay at home tomorrow but not the whole week?”  
“No.”, he handed Penelope the report and she walked straight into her Batcave.  
“Why are you doing this to me?”   
“Because I am obviously the only one who cares about you!”, both went silent. The whole office now looking at them. Luke and Derek whistling. Spencer looked angry at then and they stopped.   
“That was unnecessary.”, Dove said quietly, going back to his desk. Spencer looked at Emily and JJ, trying to figure out his next step, with them only giving him only the ‘You messed up’-look. He knew he shouldn’t have said that and he didn’t mean it like that. Well, he did, but he had no right to judge about the people in Dove´s life. After all, he barely knew her. 

He walked into the Batcave, only to come back two minutes later with a piece of paper in his hand. When he stood next to Dove, who was again sitting on Spencer’s desk, he waved with the sheet in front of her face. “What is that?”, he sat on his chair and rolled in front of her. “Nothing. Just a copy of your grades…I thought you´d be more able to relax a little, knowing them.”, her face lit up. “How?”, she grabbed the paper. “Penelope, but she wants free access to that carton.”, he pointed at the box of from the bakery, Dove had brought with her. “Like your grades?”, a happy grin appeared on her face. “You passed with flying colors. Congrats.”.  
Rossi came over looking at her grades. “Wow, a little genius.”, he took the sheet from her hands and passed it to JJ who passed it to Emily. Although impressed Emily raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think that´s very legal, now is it, Spence?”, the doctor quickly took it, ripped it to shreds and threw it away. “No evidence, no case.”, Dove added to that, making the team laugh. As her phone made a sound, she quickly jumped up. “I need to go. That was my aunt, funeral you know?”, Spencer stood up to say goodbye, but just awkwardly smiled. The white blonde girl took the box of desserts and offered them again to the team, saying bye, while giving Hank the longest goodbye. She quickly turned to her professor “I see you tomorrow then?”, he nodded and watched Dove walk up to the Batcave. “Gotta pay my depts.”, she smiled at the team, walking in with and walking out without the box. She waved again to the team before leaving through the elevator.

“She´s cute.”, Emily said, winking at Spencer. “I LOVE HER!”, a happy voice yelled from the Batcave. “A little young, don’t you think?”, Derek looked at his platonic little brother.   
“I don’t see her like that.”, the doctor said with a plain face. “Of course you don’t.”, Luke added, taking a bite from his croissant. “Spence, that would be understandable. She´s pretty, really smart and you two seem to get along really well…”  
“JJ, no. I don’t…I´m…I´m her teacher and- and I-“, he sighed, starting to rub his eyes. This was something he didn’t want to think about. Romantic feeling only led to loss and heartbreak. Penelope came out of her office. “Sooooo? What are we talking about?”, Derek wrapped an arm around her. “About how Spencer doesn’t fancy Dove.”, she pouted.   
“Why not? She´s so nice.”  
“She´s too young, Babygirl.”  
“But he looks like he bathed in the fountain of youth for the last ten years. By the way: jealous.”, Spencer shrugged, not seeing what his appearance had to do with his age.  
“Look. Yes, I like her BUT not like that. She is really nice and her family isn’t doing her right. You should´ve seen her parents at the hospital. Not once they asked her if she was okay instead made her feel bad for the bill...”, Rossi raised his eyebrows.  
“Are they narcissistic?”, Spencer nodded. “Her stepfather is Pete Russo.”  
“Oh, it´s worse. They are politicians.”, the italian answered.  
“I haven’t seen her cry once after her cousin died. Instead she puts on this terribly fake smile.”, JJ signed.  
“That´s common among children from narcissistic parents. They are scared to show there emotions, since they could be an inconvenience to the people around them.”, Emily nodded.  
“Given her behavior, her family really pulled a number on her.”, Spencer wheezed.  
“Her mothers first instinct was to shame her appearance and taking a photo of them for social media.”, Penelope shook her head, taking her smartphone out, typing.   
“Oh no…”, hear face got sad and she turned her phone to her friends. The photo on Instagram showed Dove sitting in the hospital bed, looking tired and as if she just came back from hell and her mother who had a tight grip on her shoulder to hold her in place and forcing her to smile. Emily read the caption out loud:

“’My love, my daughter, a smelly little hero. LOL’ wow…”  
“She looks so tired.”, Luke added.  
“How would you look an hour after almost dying?”, Rossi asked. Spencer gritted his teeth and looked away. The picture just made him angry.   
“Can we now stop talking about her?”, Rossi patted his shoulder and went in his office, while the rest of the team started to resume their work, Derek getting a chair and sitting next to Spencer with Hank on his lab.   
“She´s the girl from your text, right?”, Spencer only nodded. Regretting ever having send it.  
“Do you wanna know what I think?”, the doctor now looked at his friend.  
“Okay. I still think she is too young, like how old is she twenty?”  
“Twenty-one.”, Derek nodded.  
“Very young. But, and I think that’s the most important, you seemed like yourself again. You know, the before prison Reid. That awkward, cool dude with the big brain. And I think every woman, bringing that part of you back, is worth keeping.”  
Spencer looked away. He hated talking about prison, about how it changed him, about who he was before. It had broken him, made him bitter and feel lonely. He always thought he was good at hiding it but his friends were profilers and they knew him.   
Mabey Derek was right.   
Reid had felt better when he was with her. Probably not because of love. It most likely was that they both in some way suffered and recognized the pain the other was carrying around. Mathematically two minus result in a plus. So two sad people together would result in them being happy…right?   
Yes, that wasn’t making sense, but it still sounded better than a professor in his late thirties falling for a twenty-one year old student. And that was enough for him.  
“I´m not in love.”, he said more to himself then to Morgan.  
“Not even a little crush?”, damn it. He just knew spencer to well.  
“It´s because of Maeve, right?”, Spencer just shook his head.   
After her death he had decided never to fall in love again. That short minutes of happiness, followed by the everlasting pain of loss and guilt had made him build a wall around his heart. Maeve´s face still haunted him, he wasn’t even at her funeral. He didn’t feel like he had a right to be there, it was his fault she died. He didn’t deserve to say goodbye to her and he didn’t deserve to fall in love again. Derek laid an hand on his shoulder.  
“When you´re ready to talk, we´ll talk. Okay?”


End file.
